Game Release Notes - January 9, 2018

01/09/2018 - January 9 Release Notes

General

Reports of undead attacking travelers near major cities have increased.

Fractals

General

Agony resistance now has a unique icon in the Hero panel.

Shattered Observatory

Increased the window of time to kill the temporal anomalies by 3 seconds in challenge mode of the Arkk encounter.

Twilight Oasis

Defeated and downed players will now rally after each phase in the final boss fight.

The two Awakened abominations will now assist players in the beginning.

Initial Awakened allies have had their damage and toughness greatly increased.

Removed the knockdown effect from Crushing Charge.

Greatly reduced the damage inflicted by Crushing Charge.

Greatly reduced the initial impact damage inflicted by Charged Shot.

Nightmare

Increased the capture speed of capture points in the second event.

Decreased the area-of-effect hazard damage and speed in second event.

Decreased the time required for hallucinations to reappear in the second event.

Reduced the health of Fleshgorge.

Raids

General

Fixed an issue in which the Hall of Chains raid incorrectly awarded experience to the Central Tyria Mastery track. It will now award experience to the Path of Fire Mastery track.

Call of the Mists will now persist indefinitely in the most recent raid release. Additionally, Call of the Mists will now rotate every two weeks between all the previous raids.

Spirit Vale

Fixed an exploit that allowed players to skip a portion of the "Run from the spirits" event.

Structured Player vs. Player

Team health bars are now visible in PvP maps. This can be disabled in the Competitive section of General Options menu.

You can now sell tier 1 Mini Llamas to the league vendor for 10 league tickets.

The gizmo awarded for winning first place in the monthly automated tournament has been updated to Champion's Burning Swords.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

A new Black Lion Garden Plot Deed is available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 1,000 gems.

Up to two Black Lion Garden Plot Deeds may be purchased, each unlocking 4 special harvesting nodes in your home instance.

Grow what you want! Each node is individually customizable and provides one of over 50 crops daily from all across Tyria. Ask your new home gardener for details.

The Shattered Bloodstone Ascender Combo returns for 7 days to the Style category of the Gem Store for 500 gems.

A new Customer Appreciation Package containing one Black Lion Chest Key and one Black Lion Chest is available at no cost for one week only. Limit one per account. Only available to Core, Heart of Thorns™, or Path of Fire™ accounts.

Improvements

The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Lion Arrives Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.

The Black Lion Statuette has arrived! Get a statuette with every Black Lion Chest.

Black Lion Statuettes are redeemable directly using the statuette itself or at any of the Black Lion Chest Merchants located in every major city.

Many items from the Black Lion Chest are available, as well as some special offerings. Seek out the Black Lion Chest Merchants or just acquire a Black Lion Statuette.

The following regular updates are specific to the Lion Arrives Chest:

New Items:

The new Mini Yellow Jackal Pup has been added as the new guaranteed item. Use the Mystic Forge to unlock the whole family of jackal pups.

The new Griffon Hatchling Package with a Griffon Hatchling Backpack and Griffon Hatchling Glider is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Lion Arrives Chest.

The Svanir Gauntlets remain available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Lion Arrives Chest.

The Merciless Weapon Collection is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Lion Arrives Chest.

The Dragon's Jade Weapon Collection is available as a rare drop for the duration of the Lion Arrives Chest.

Updates:

Some additional minor rebalancing has been done to the regular drops following the Glacial Wintersday Chest.

Luck and finishers are no longer available as drops.

The new Tyrian Exchange Voucher has been added.

The Black Lion Commemorative Coin's rarity has shifted to junk. Let's all commemorate this event.

WvW

Fixed an issue in which the bonus drops for certain gathering tools were not functioning. The Volatile Magic gathering tools will be fixed at a later date.

Zealot's Flame: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to hit enemies on noncombatant teams. The burning pulse effect of this skill remains unblockable but can now be avoided by using evasion or blinding the attacker.

Fixed an issue in which the Black Lion garden plot occasionally displayed the wrong interact text while using certain seed pouches.